Daily Archives: March 19, 2011

Chicago Blackhawks recalled forward Ben Smith from the Rockford IceHogs on Saturday. An announcement will be made on Sunday morning.

Smith has played in twenty games since missing a month with a concussion suffered in a January 8th game against Grand Rapids. In that game, widely regarded as Smith’s best performance as a pro at the time, Smith posted 3 assists in a dominant 6-0 win over the Griffins.

In the 20 games since his return, Smith has 8 goals and an assist. However, seven of those eight goals have come in the last ten games.

Overall, Smith has 15 goals and 10 assists in 55 games in his rookie season with the IceHogs.

This move comes two days following the Blackhawks March 17th game at Dallas, a 5-0 loss to the Stars. A late afternoon Bryan Bickell scratch left the Blackhawks short a player and they played the game with 17 skaters, one short of the regular 18.

Thursday’s loss could loom large next month if Chicago and Dallas wind up in a tie-breaker situation, in which Dallas’ 5-0 victory gave them the deciding head-to-head advantage.

A second period parade to the penalty box saw the Rockford IceHogs go from being down two goals, to heading to their dressing room trailing 5-0 after forty minutes.

After an evenly played first period saw Rockford head to the break down 1-0, the IceHogs had no answer for the visiting Oklahoma City Barons in the middle period.

“We just didn’t physically compete at all,” head coach Bill Peters said after his team’s second consecutive 5-1 home loss.

“We had some power play chances in the first period; hit the post on one of them on Jeff Taffe’s shot from the point. Down 1-0 after one, I thought we generated some chances, but I thought they went to work and dug in in the second and we took a bunch of penalties to make it hard on ourselves. And we couldn’t kill the penalties that we did take. In essence, that was the game right there in the middle period.” Read more »